The present disclosure relates to vehicle navigation.
In-vehicle navigation technology, such as GPS-based navigation units, has become increasingly ubiquitous, and provides drivers with directions, area information, and real-time vehicle location information. This navigation information is often provided via an in-dash navigation unit, a third-party navigation unit, and/or a portable electronic device, such as a driver's mobile phone.
In some cases, various navigation applications may utilize the geolocation functionality of the device to provide the user with mapping and traffic information. These applications, like Google Maps™, Waze™, TomTom™, etc., assist in providing route options to the users, and in some cases, provide alternate routes for the user in case of situations like congestion or roadblocks. These navigation applications send information to a central server which accumulates data from many instances of the application to provide updates. However, communication to and from a central server directly often results in a less-up-to-date routing information due to network issues and expensive data processing needed to process the amount of data being received for a myriad of locations from a numerous application instances (e.g., hundreds of thousands, millions, etc.).
This results in existing technologies often lacking the real-time data needed to optimally and dynamically update navigation routes being traveled by users. Often, there is a significant lag between what is occurring on the roadway and the data reflecting the roadway state being processed by the navigation server that calculates the navigation routes that are provided. This is caused, at least in part, by the ever-changing state of roadways and traffic. Poor data quality, due to poor or non-existent connectivity, older un-connected vehicles, and roadways that lack intelligent infrastructure, also contribute to the problem.
Because the central server often does not have the latest information, the routes that are provided by it often do not reflect what quicker and/or more efficient options might be available. Routing information and other instructions received by the vehicles from the central server is generally outdated by the time it is processed by the vehicle, or may initially be generated by inaccurate heuristics modeled on historical averages due to the lack of current data. As a result, significant delays and obstacles exist in obtaining the latest traffic and/or roadway information, which prohibits better routes from being provided during the travel. Often, using these solutions, even when an optimal route is selected and utilized, it does not remain optimal during the travel due to the ever-changing state of the roadway (e.g., changes in traffic, weather, vehicle position, etc.).
While some existing solutions, such as those described by World Intellectual Property Office Publication No. WO 2009065637, U.S. Pat. No. 8,825,395, or European Patent No. EP 1202028, consider user preferences, they fail to do so in conjunction with dynamic changes occurring on during travel. As a result, route computations based on partially available data is inefficient and fail to fully benefit drivers.